Celebrating life, one ear at a time

Carlie Crawfis hefts a sale of sweet corn from her truck-bed store along East Main in Ottawa on Monday. (Putnam Sentinel/Anne Coburn-Griffis)

OTTAWA — U.S. Route 224 is a busy road, especially where it turns
into Ottawa’s Main Street. On late Monday afternoons it becomes heavily
populated with drivers going to and from work and semis en route. Yet
it’s the place to be if you want to set up a roadside stand, especially
if you are a spirited seven-year-old girl with a truck-bed full of sweet
corn to sell.

Carlie
Crawfis of Ottawa could be seen doing just that on Monday. She, her
parents and her two lively little brothers set up shop across from the
Car-E-It on the east side of the railroad tracks. Even though the whole
family was there, Crawfis was the chief salesperson. She danced around,
an ear of corn in each hand, her blond curls bouncing in the cool, humid
July air. With a frontperson like that and a price of four dollars per
dozen, how could you not stop?

Those that did park and purchase
got some hefty ears grown right in the Crawfis family’s soil. What
buyers probably didn’t know was that, by buying that corn, they were
supporting a good cause.

Crawfis underwent open-heart surgery due
to subaortic stenosis on March 18 at Nationwide Children’s Hospital,
Columbus. She was no stranger to the facility as she had already
undergone multiple surgeries there as an infant, including repair on her
esophagus. As demonstrated by her energetic sweet corn sales pitch, the
hospital did a bang-up job.

“She’s perfect,” said her mom Amy.

Before
classes start for Carlie at Sts. Peter and Paul School, the family will
go on the vacation that was promised to her to speed the healing
process.